The Lerner Blog

By Domenica Di Piazza, Editorial Director, TFCB April is National Poetry Month. This link offers lots of information about all the wonderful events taking place this month to celebrate poetry. You can even sign up for the Poem-a-Day feature, which emails a poem to you every day. The link above gives a sampling of what’s […]Read more "National Poetry Month"

by Carol Hinz Editorial Director, Millbrook Press Welcome to Nonfiction Monday! Please leave a comment that includes the link to your post for Nonfiction Monday, and I’ll add it to the list below. In other nonfiction news, be sure to check out School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books. The Frog Scientist by Pamela S. […]Read more "Nonfiction Monday Is Here"

by Carol Hinz Editorial Director, Millbrook Press For today’s Nonfiction Monday, I thought it might be interesting to talk about where nonfiction books come from. You see, there’s this stork who flies over our building and drops off bundles of bright and shiny books. . . . Well, actually, it has nothing to do with […]Read more "How a Nonfiction Book Is Born"

By Anna Cavallo, Associate Editor Recently, our little corner of the Upper Midwest has been experiencing an incredibly early spring warming—temperatures frequently in the 50s and up into the 70s, and mostly sunny. (Often, March is the snowiest month here, offering no signs that the winter doom will ever melt away. It always does, but […]Read more "Dreaming of Summer (Reading)"

[Note that there is no April Foolery here. If you want that, go to Greenwillow. I couldn’t top it so I won’t try.] The Bologna Book Fair is a hopeful, optimistic fair, and I’ll tell you why. First off, a rather shocking number of young illustrators roam the halls, eager to show anybody their portfolios. […]Read more "Hopeful Bologna"

By Domenica Di Piazza, Editorial Director, TFCB Inspired by Elizabeth Bird’s “Top 100 Children’s Novels” entries on her Fuse # 8 blog, I did a little online digging to look at the covers of some of my favorite adult novels. One of the books I reread periodically is Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, first […]Read more "Covering “The Age of Innocence”"

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press No, no, Elephant in the Kitchen isn’t a variant of the expression “elephant in the room.” I’m not about to bring up some terrible unspoken fact about the editorial department kitchen. Elephant in the Kitchen is, in fact, the name of the first chapter book I read entirely by […]Read more "Elephant in the Kitchen"

I recently had the good fortune to vacation in Mazatlan, Mexico. Not being much of a beach person, I wasn’t sure how much I’d enjoy this town famous for its resorts and sport fishing. But Mazatlan is a jewel. The turquoise Pacific, long stretches of sandy beaches, and the buttery late-winter sun instantly dissolved my […]Read more "Writers in Paradise"

Actually, I’m in Amsterdam, having left Bologna this morning at the uncivilized hour of 6:50. I’d planned to blog after dinner last night, but I should know better. You see, “after dinner” at the book fair is no earlier than 11:00 and last night it was much later. (Before you have visions of Bolognese bacchanalia, […]Read more "Bologna Briefly (And Late!)"